“You leave my father out of this,” Hazel hisses, her composed facade cracking like ice over hot water. “He was a good man.”
I close my eyes for a moment as the final piece of the puzzle falls into place. “That also explains why the fingerprints on the knife handle didn’t match anyone from the club. But I have a feeling they’d be a perfect match for your father.”
Something in Hazel snaps. Her expression shifts from defensive to dangerous in the blink of an eye. With a movement too swift to counter, she reaches into her steampunk tote bag and pulls out whatlooks to be a very realistic small pistol. And I’m not up for calling her bluff.
“Very clever, Bizzy BakerWilder,” she says, her voice low and threatening as she aims the gun at us. “Yes, I killed Heath. He would have destroyed everything I’ve worked for and exposed me to criminal charges. I couldn’t let that happen.”
The festival continues around us, oblivious to the life-or-death drama playing out on its fringes. Laughter and music float through the air, and it feels like an otherworldly soundtrack to our standoff.
“You’d better back up,” Hazel warns, taking a step backward toward the haunted woods. “Because I’m not going down without a fight. If you’re smart, you won’t follow me.”
She turns and darts into the forest and the dark trees swallow her instantly. A scream pierces the night—not Hazel’s voice, but a sound of pure terror.
Without thinking, Buffy and I run after her, with our pets racing ahead. We break through the tree line just in time to see the most impossible sight—a glowing blue figure hovering in front of Hazel, blocking her escape route. The apparition is unmistakably female, her features transformed by rage into something truly supernatural. As the ghost shifts, her face becomes visible in the moonlight—my face, or one eerily similar to it.
Great-Aunt Edna.
The ghost burns from cool blue to angry red like a flame of furious spectral energy.
“Bizzy!” Jasper’s voice cuts through the night as he and Leo bolt into the woods with their guns drawn and head this way.
Hazel turns to run, but she’s immediately tackled by a furry avalanche. Fish, Sherlock, Fudge, and Skittles leap upon her as one coordinated unit to bring her down. The gun flies from her hand, skittering across the forest floor.
Great-Aunt Edna’s ghost drifts toward me as Jasper and Leo secure Hazel. The spirit’s anger fades, returning to that cool blue glow, and she leans close to my ear, her voice a soft whisper that somehow cuts through all other sounds as she says, “Meet me at the gazebo.”
Then she vanishes in a shower of pale blue stars that dissolve into the night air as if she never existed.
“She confessed,” Buffy shouts to Jasper as he and Leo handcuff Hazel. “She killed Heath Cullen and she acted alone, but the knife—it has the prints of her father.”
Jasper glances my way for confirmation, and I nod. “The knife belonged to him. She had the fake knives made to replicate it. She tried to frame both Buffy and Hammie Mae.”
Leo leads Hazel past us, with her steampunk costume now torn and dirty from her struggle.
“And I would have gotten away with it,” she spits the words out, “if it weren’t for you two meddling idiots and your silly pets, too!”
The pets in question respond with a chorus of indignant barks and yowls that need no translation for anyone.
Jasper holsters his weapon and takes me in his arms, his Frankenstein’s monster makeup now smeared from exertion. Buffy blows out a breath and says something about needing a stiff apple cider before taking off for the festivities.
“Bizzy, are you okay?” Jasper asks as he pulls me close. “When I got the alert about Hazel’s pharmaceutical history, I came looking for you immediately.”
I nod, melting into his embrace for a moment before pulling back to look into his pale gray eyes. The adrenaline is wearing off, leaving me shaky and overwhelmed—not just from the confrontation with Hazel, but from the appearance of Great-Aunt Edna’s ghost.
Was it real? Was it another of Hazel’s projections? Does this have something to do with my severe lack of sleep? And why does she want to meet me at the gazebo?
Jasper leads me back toward the festival with his arm protectively around my shoulders, and I debate whether to tell him about my ghostly encounter.
My practical, evidence-driven detective husband might not be ready to hear that his wife has a ghostly appointment to keep.
Then again, this is Spider Cove on Halloween night. The veil between worlds is thin, just the way Heath always claimed. And somewhere in the darkness beyond the festival lights, Great-Aunt Edna is waiting—with answers to questions I didn’t even know to ask.
CHAPTER 24
The gazebo sits at the edge of the festival grounds, looking every bit like the witch’s gingerbread house it’s been transformed into with its white latticed structure now dripping with fake icing and oversized peppermint swirls. Orange lights cast candy corn shadows across the worn wooden floor, while wisps of dry ice fog curl around its base like a confectionery spell gone wrong.
The sounds of the Halloween celebration continue in the distance—music, maniacal laughter, the occasional shriek from the haunted house—but here, in this bubble of sudden stillness, they seem to belong to another world entirely.
Jasper went ahead to help Leo deal with some paperwork, and I wasted no time boot-scooting in this direction.
